The Toxic Substances Management Policy (TSMP) is a federal government policy under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) (1995) which was developed to provide direction on the management of substances that have been found to be persistent, bio-accumulative, and toxic (PBT). Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency uses this preventative and precautionary approach to assess and manage substances in pesticides that could harm human health or the environment. This policy also calls for the virtual elimination of the most hazardous substances. The PMRA works in partnership with pesticide registrants to reduce contaminant levels, adopt the use of best available manufacturing technology, and/or minimize releases where feasible. Reduction efforts focus on contaminants where pesticides are considered a major environmental source and on specific pesticides with the highest releases. This approach has been applied to hexachlorobenzene (HCB), a PBT environmental pollutant that has contaminated water and food-chain sources globally presenting significant risks to both human health and the environment. There are various sources of this pollutant including as a contaminant in some pesticide products. The objective of this project was to examine PMRA's progress towards reducing the total national release of HCB from agricultural pesticides. The results showed a significant reduction in releases from 2008 to 2010 (41.7 kg to 13.6 kg) which is attributed to the implementation of contaminant reduction strategies, the phase-out of certain pesticides and the market shift toward newer/cleaner chemistries. The PMRA approach to implementing and tracking reduction efforts by targeting the major contributors has proven to be effective and thus, successfully assists in diminishing releases of contaminants that could harm human health or the environment. Similar reduction measures could be applied to other substances slated for virtual elimination found as contaminants in pesticides and other consumer products.

Evaluating the effectiveness of PMRA's implementation of virtual elimination policies for contaminants case study: Hexachlorobenzene (HCB)

248th National Meeting (2014)

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